Lewis Woodson - AME Conferences

AME Conferences

In 1829 Woodson began an active life of writing to influence public policy, with a letter published by Freedom's Journal, an early African-American newspaper. He denounced proposals for expatriation or colonization of black Americans to Africa, as supported by the American Colonization Society. He advocated separate black communities in the United States.

Reverend Lewis Woodson served as secretary for an AME Conference in Hillsborough, Ohio (near Cincinnati) while Bishop Morris Brown presided. The riots of 1829 in Cincinnati had driven out much of the African-American population. Labor competition had led to whites' attacking blacks, who had been establishing a thriving free black community. Nearly 1200 blacks left Cincinnati for Canada as a result.

In Pittsburgh, Woodson joined with John B. Vashon to establish the African Education Society. As Secretary to the AME Ohio Conference of 1833, Woodson advanced a resolution urging the AME to establish or assist "...common schools, Sunday Schools and temperance societies..." It was the first such resolution to urge the AME denomination to support education. Lewis Woodson filled a key role in the establishment of the Third, or Ohio District, of the AME denomination. The AME Church founded Union Seminary near Columbus, Ohio in 1847.

A few years after arriving in Pittsburgh, Lewis Woodson opened a barbershop. He operated the business at the same time he pursued his ministry and major civic interests. Vashon and Woodson befriended the young Martin Delany, and acted as his teachers and mentors. Delany became a spokesman for blacks during the Civil War and helped them to be accepted as soldiers on the Union side.

In 1837 Lewis Woodson served as secretary for a group of African Americans who created the "Pittsburgh Memorial", a document asserting that free blacks should retain the voting right in Pennsylvania. Following the 1831 Nat Turner slave rebellion in Virginia and the growth of the free population in Pennsylvania, fears contributed to support among whites to restrict the rights of free blacks . While the legislature deprived free blacks of the right to vote in the Commonwealth for some years, Woodson was instrumental in securing public funding for black education. He joined the Western District of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and worked for abolition.